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Whitepapers

The Event Highlights report gives you an idea of what goes on at Future Stores year on year. See who was there, from which companies, what they talked about and when you can look forward to joining the next event!

Articles

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Technology has fundamentally changed the way consumers engage with retailers, forcing businesses to create consistently great customer experiences across shopping channels.

In this exclusive whitepaper, created in conjunction with CFI Group, we use primary research to explore the future of retail customer experiences:
- How retailers are struggling to create consistent experiences across touch points
- What the greatest in-store sales assets are
- Which retail technologies will be disappearing in the near future

In December of 2013, Worldwide Business Research presented a benchmarking questionnaire to a national audience of customer experience professionals. The goal of the survey was to shed light on current trends in customer experience culture, strategy and reporting. More specifically, the survey is intended to provide you with a better understanding of how your organization stacks up with respect to official job titles, length of time spent in customer experience roles, level of investment into customer experience departments, challenges customer experience professionals face, ability to get funding for customer experience initiatives, KPI’s and more.

In March of 2014, the Future Stores team presented a questionnaire to a national audience of retail professionals. The goal of the survey was to shed light on current trends in store technology, in-store experience, strategy, and reporting. More specifically, the survey is intended to provide you with a better understanding of how your organization stacks up with respect to technology investment, store expansion, progress in omni-channel integration, analytics, customer experience, and more.

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91Mobile technology has made today’s consumer more connected and empowered than ever before. The in-store shopping experience continues to evolve as customers instantly access information about products, pricing, inventory and more – both about the store they’re standing in and about competitors’ offerings as well. In short, people are showrooming.

As a result of these new consumer behaviors, it is critical for brick-and-mortar retailers (and especially wireless retailers) to employ omnichannel strategies to engage with customers across all channels: online, mobile and in-store.

The end goal for brick-and-mortar retailers should not be to defeat showrooming, but to integrate the mobile technologies necessary to convert all walk-in customers, whether they’re there to showroomor not. With the right combination of information, convenience and efficiency, retailers can deliver the in-store experience today’s consumer is looking for.

Once considered experimental merchandising for adventurous retailers and cashstrapped entrepreneurs, pop-up stores have become an established national phenomenon and a legitimate means of testing product, generating buzz, building brand awareness, and driving sales for big-name retailers and ambitious upstarts alike. Growth in mobile broadband technology is expanding the possibilities for a diverse array of applications for mobile pop-up. Furthermore, the “fly-by-night” qualities that might have characterized early pop-ups have now been supplanted by dependable, secure infrastructure solutions that put temporary retail locations on par with their more permanent counterparts.

This paper explores the pop-up retail phenomenon, outlines the challenges and obstacles to successful implementation, and discusses existing, rapid-deployment solutions for connecting pop-up locations with mission-critical retail applications and the cloud. The first part of the paper will address the business case for pursuing a pop-up strategy; the second part will consider technology implementation
strategies that enable a rich and secure popup experience.

How in-store shoppers access inventory available on the web

Challenge: Dicks Golf Galaxy needed a comprehensive solution to offer in-store shoppers access to the inventory available on the web that might be out-of-stock in their particular location. Results: Creating a new web-storefront to be used on touch-screen kiosks that leverages existing product catalog so that shoppers can order out-of-stock products and have them shipped to store or their home at no additional cost.

A Retailer's Guide to Mobile

Mobile’s growth presents a vast opportunity for retailers. To reach their full potential and stand apart from the competition, retailers need to create an excellent customer experience via every channel. Mobile should not be considered in isolation but as the glue for an overall effective multichannel strategy. With soaring adoption rates, it is clear to see that mobile commerce presents an opportunity for retailers in every vertical.

In June 2013, RetailMeNot commissioned Forrester Consulting to examine the total economic impact and potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realize by deploying the RetailMeNot In-Store Solution (In-Store). The purpose of this study is to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of In-Store on their organizations.

Whitepapers

This whitepaper explores the pop-up retail phenomenon, outlines the challenges and obstacles to successful implementation, and discusses existing, rapid-deployment solutions for connecting pop-up locations with mission-critical retail applications and the cloud. The first part of the paper will address the business case for pursuing a pop-up strategy; the second part will consider technology implementation strategies that enable a rich and secure pop-up experience.